This Harvard student dropped a rap album as his final dissertation

Writing a dissertation is tough work – it’s a lot of writing, that. Lots of late nights, lots of Red Bull, lots of carpel tunnel, lots of stress and lots of not-going-out-for-like-four-months – I’m certainly not jumping at the chance to do it ever again.

But why, what a fool I was – why write my dissertation? Why not make a rap album instead and submit that? Genuinely a lot easier. That’s what bright spark Obasi Shaw did over at Harvard University: he wrote a 10-track mixtape called Liminal Minds, and then popped it in the in-tray in the office. Then he got an A- for it.

Here, you can listen to it below if you like (I would have given him a C+, but that’s cos the beats don’t bang hard enough, imho):

If there are, say, 400 words in a rap song, and 10 tracks on an album – that’s an average of 4,000 words. That’s quite a lot less than 20,000. And also, he didn’t even have to do the production – he out-sourced it. This guy’s doing uni right.

Topics

Share this article

Author

Gary Ogden

Shortlist writer and "the least woke person in the office", Gary Ogden, likes horror movies, Cheestrings, tapping his leg under the desk, "having a drink", hiding from responsibility, screaming into the mirror whenever he is alone, and assorted other things. Mainly the screaming thing though.
@garyblogden